Current processes of treating many orthopedic injuries involve surgically placing orthopedic implants to stabilize, support, compress, or fixate the injury, particularly injuries and fractures to the skeletal system. While some surgical processes are elective, many cases require surgery to be performed immediately, within a few hours of diagnosis. Such cases include emergencies and trauma cases.
Current surgical methods of treating trauma fractures include attaching an elongated plate implant to the bone, using surgical screws and pins at locations proximal and distal to the fracture. The screws are drilled through holes in the plate implant and into healthy bone tissue to ensure the plate is firmly attached to the bone at the site of the fracture.
Trauma implants are usually designed and fabricated offsite before the patient's injury occurs, and a stock of implants is usually stored near the operating room for use in surgical procedures. Since the geometry of both the fracture and the patient's existing anatomy is unknown at fabrication time, the implant may not be optimal for treating a specific patient's injury. To overcome this drawback, implants are usually fabricated in a finite set of shapes and sizes, and are specific to injury type and injury location. Since the variety of injuries and anatomy shapes is very high, a wide range of implants must be fabricated and stored near the operating room. This can result in waste, since many of the implants will never be used. Additionally, some limited customizability is associated with the design of implants. This customizability is usually limited to providing a surgeon with a set of options as to where screws can be placed through the implant. Some implants also permit a surgeon to physically bend the implant along the length of the implant, into a desired shape. While these features add some flexibility to the implant, they are still not customized for a specific patient's injury and may not be optimal to treat the injury.
For the reasons stated above, and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for customized orthopedic implants that are immediately available for surgery. There is also a need for improved methods and processes to design, fabricate, and sterilize customized orthopedic implants such that they can be used to surgically treat a patient's injury.